How often do you use the whistle 2nd major key to play and why? That is to use D whistle to play G key, Low A whistle to play D key, Low G whistle to play C key, etc.. If we use Low G to play C key, is the C Key a high C Key? What are the advantages and disadvantages to use whistle 2nd major key?
I carry both C and D whistles. I sometimes play D music on the C, but almost never the other way round. I don’t know why. It just seems to work out that way. I play whatever I’m holding at the time.
Cheers,
Serpent
Just about always. The second major key
is very good; for many tunes better
than the first.
Quite often. I frequently want to play a tune that can’t be played in D in the first octave because it would go lower than the bell note. My very first step is to bump it up to G.
Redwolf
On 2002-11-21 01:54, Redwolf wrote:
Quite often. I frequently want to play a tune that can’t be played in D in the first octave because it would go lower than the bell note. My very first step is to bump it up to G.Redwolf
Me too. Here’s a bit more about why we do this. Suppose I want to play in D, the tune goes below the bell note, and the top octave sounds a bit too high for what I am after. I have two relatively straitghtforward choices. One is to play it on low D in the top octave. The other is to play it on an A whistle. The latter choice would probably make it easier to play (the A whistle being smaller than the low D) and might sound better too if what we really want is that bottom octave sound.
About 55% of Irish Traditional Music is written in the key of D. Excellent, a D whistle covers that nicely.
About 40% is written in G. Hey, a D whistle covers it.
About 3% is written in A. Half hole the G on a D whistle and you’ve got it.
The other 2% you might want a C whistle for.
“The Low Whistle Book” puts it more clearly than most sources. From what I recall, it breaks tunes down into 6-finger starts (all six fingers down on the first main note), 3-finger starts, 5-finger starts etc. The key of the whistle is unimportant unless you’re playing with others or a recording.
On 2002-11-21 01:54, Redwolf wrote:
Quite often. I frequently want to play a tune that can’t be played in D in the first octave because it would go lower than the bell note. My very first step is to bump it up to G.
In my experience, there are very few tunes which are nice enough go below the bottom D and not go over second octave G, so that you can comfortably play it on an A whistle. (“Pull Out the Knife and Stick it Again” is the first example I can recall of a tune that does work if you do this.)
There is a well-established tradition of just bringing the low notes an octave up so they are in the D whistle’s range – not surprising since pipers and flute players don’t have much choice.
I play a lot in C with other
instruments and routinely use
the G whistle–works fine.
Prefer to to a C whistle.
You can switch keys for ornamentation reasons too. For instance Down By the Salley Gardens can be comfortably played in either D or G on a D whistle. Now Joanie Madden’s version on Song of the Irish Whistle has some slides and cuts and stuff that I just couldn’t reproduce trying to play it in D. This was when I had just started whistling and hadn’t thought about these key things. How can I make it do that? I kept wondering. You just can’t slide up to a D.
Voila! You play it in G instead. Lots more options.
I learned the fingering for D and for C (which enables you to also play in F by cross-fingering the Bb). So I have four keys I can play and that covers most tunes.
However, I play anything on all my whistles. I play an A whistle most of the time, but I just use the C or D or F or G fingering, depending on the music. I don’t know the “real” A fingering for the A, but since I play alone, it doesn’t really matter!
My band often uses whistles to back-up vocals. When we use two whistles for this purpose, I often use an A whistle in the key of D to augment my partner’s D. The larger instrument has a different timbre and a fuller sound, which adds another dimension to the entire instrumental mix.
Best.
Byll